September 3, 2014

I dont even know where to start! My mind is all over the place today! First off, I can't even believe that I'm leaving for Argentina on Monday! This is just crazy to me! I am finally to the point where I think I am ready as I'll probably ever be. There's really only so much I could learn at the MTC and the rest I'm just gonna have to figure it out there like the language haha. We had a really cool opportunity to skype last thursday for our TRC lesson. I was so nervous at first but when the lady called us and we answered it and saw her and these 2 little kids I got so excited! Shes a member from mexico and her little boy and girl were SOOO cute! oh my heck! We just talked to them and got to know them and the little girl was darling she just wouldn't stop talking in her cute little spanish and she was showing us all her pictures! And then we got to our lesson which was on faith. We weren't prepared for teaching kids because we thought we were just teaching one person, so we kind of had to change our lesson plan a little bit, but we asked the little boy what faith was and he smiled and just went off for like a whole minute about what faith was to him and the whole time he was playing with his little CTR ring and I just wanted to cry I was so happy! If I had to pick one thing I'm most excited for its the kids in argentina! I walked away from that lesson with the biggest smile on my face! Oh and that same night we committed our investigator to not only be baptized in a couple of weeks, but to get married in the temple because he is planning on proposing to his girlfriend soon and he said in a year from his baptism he will get married in the temple! So it was a great day! I can't wait for days like that on the mission!

Sunday was good as always. The best part was after the devotional they always have different movies you can go to watch and we happened to chose to go to the Testaments movie...well I was just excited because it had a little bit of a love story in it haha and there was 3 kissing scenes haha it was probably the funniest thing I've ever experienced at the mtc. So I got to watch a chick flick at the mtc ;) 

Last night after the devotional we had another MEETING! the devotional was by a member of the 70 and he talked about looking at every investigator as if it was your mom or dad or brother or sister. it was a great devotional! afterwards we always go back and talk about the devotional as a district. Well it turned out to be another really spiritual meeting, in fact I wanna say i've never felt the spirit that strong. One of the elders felt impressed that we should all talk about someone in our family that is inactive or not a member of the church. We all went around in a circle and talked about someone who is really close to us who struggles with the gospel. My heart was broken for some of those elders who have parents or close siblings who are really struggling. I wish SO badly that each person that we talked about could have been there. We care so much about these people and why is it hard for us? because the gospel brings happiness...true and lasting happiness and we want everyone to have it! Especially our close family members! We ended up going an HOUR over time because the spirit was so strong. I had the strongest impression the whole time that we should all write down our person on the whiteboard and that for the rest of the time here at the MTC we would each pray for every single person by name. Going home last night, no one spoke. The spirit was just too strong. I went home and got right on my knees and prayed individually for every person on that paper. I know that those people will come to find the gospel again. This is real life stuff! this is not a joke! This is peoples salvation we are talking about! It just felt SO real last night as we each talked about someone personal that we loved so much. 

Another thing that has been on my mind this whole week is My Purpose as a missionary. My purpose as a missionary is to invite others to come unto christ. Well this week, I've been thinking about what that really means and I realized that Others = EVERYONE! Everyone I come into contact with needs to hear this message. So I want to invite anyone who reads this email to do something for me....actually not for me but for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

I have had some very personal experiences with the Book of Mormon this week. And I want you all to have one this week to. So will you read the book of mormon with a specific question in mind, and search for an answer through the scriptures? Read until you have a personal experience with the scriptures! Read it like you have never read it before...I know that that's when the spirit is felt. If you don't know what to read I'll give you some suggestions of chapters that have strengthened my testimony this week: Alma chapters 5, 22, 23, 26, or 30. 

I would love nothing more than to hear from all of you who have been reading my emails and hear your experiences! I want to start fulfilling my purpose right now as a missionary, I dont want to wait until I get to Argentina. So I'm inviting you all to do that this week. And I can't wait to hear back from you all! 

Thanks for all the support and love and prayers! It is truly felt every single day I'm here. I'm sure my next letter will be FULL of adventures in ARGENTINA! 

Yo estoy muy animado! Gracias por todos! Hasta luego!!!! 

Oh before I forget, today has been the best day ever! wanna know why? because we got to go into this special Pillow room! After our service project this morning, the lady that was in charge of us took us to this secret room that no one knows about because no one is allowed in there, and it was FULL of pillows! I've never been so happy in my life haha it was basically like the celestial kingdom I'm pretty sure! 

Con mucho amor,

Hermana stewart